From September 1, pharmacies will sell medicines strictly according to prescriptions: everything will become tougher

Already in early autumn, Russian patients will face serious problems when buying prescription drugs in pharmacies. According to the new decree, when purchasing drugs related to prescription drugs (and there are 70% of such drugs in the assortment of pharmacies), you will have to present a prescription written by a doctor in full form – on a letterhead, with a number and a seal. Appointments on slips of paper will no longer pass. Other requirements for the release of drugs will also be tightened. MK learned about all the innovations.

According to the director of the SRO “Association of Independent Pharmacies”, the head of the Alliance of Pharmaceutical Associations Victoria Presnyakova, from September 1, pharmacy organizations are waiting for several innovations in the system of work at once. First, labeling is moving from a notification mode, which has been in effect for several years, to a mandatory one. “In addition, pharmacists, when dispensing prescription drugs, will now need to enter prescription data: series and date, other details, if available.

There are no clarifications yet on how to do this, but the operator of the MDLP system (Monitoring the movement of medicines) stated that webinars on this issue will be held in the near future. This means that patients should now take prescription drug purchases more seriously, as tighter pharmacy controls will make it impossible to demand or beg to sell a drug without a proper prescription. To purchase such a drug, you will certainly need to visit a doctor. Various options for prescribing a drug on a piece of paper and the like, as is common now, will gradually become a thing of the past. This innovation will have a positive impact on health indicators, as people will visit doctors more often, preventing irresponsible self-treatment,” says Victoria Presnyakova.

At the same time, patient communities are very concerned about this innovation. Today, only 10% of all prescription drugs in the country (this figure is constantly mentioned at specialized conferences) are actually dispensed by prescription. The rest are sold on papers, appointments, or simply for beautiful eyes. “What about chronic patients who, for example, constantly take drugs to reduce pressure, which are prescription? This can lead to people taking breaks in treatment, which in the case of arterial hypertension, or any chronic disease, can lead to chronic consequences. Needless to say, it is extremely difficult to get to the doctor promptly today. And the medical institutions themselves, of course, are not ready for a new load – they can’t cope with the flow of patients anyway, ”says human rights activist Ilya Vorobyov.

The SoyuzPharma Association of Pharmacy Institutions notes that they are already receiving requests from pharmacy organizations that are related to the entry into force of a new government decree of the Russian Federation No. monitoring prescription details). However, the association indicates that other rules continue to apply in the country, providing for a different procedure for transferring information to the monitoring system, which is agreed with all departments. Experts fear that purely technically, in this situation, it will be impossible to comply with the new rules, which will create another problem for pharmacies. SoyuzPharma sent an appeal to several relevant ministries with a request to give them comprehensive explanations on how to apply the new resolution in practice. “Is it necessary to redo the current integration and reconfigure, update software, cash registers? Is it really mandatory to enter information into the MDLP system for all approved prescription forms? Is filling in the prescription details on the check mandatory for all prescription drugs? What to do if the prescription form, in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, does not provide for the presence of a number and a series? For example: on the prescription forms of form No. 107-1 / y, the number and series of the prescription are absent, there is only the date of the prescription. Does the procedure and (or) format for transferring information to the MDLP system for details of paper and electronic prescriptions differ? – ask in the profile association.

Of course, all these subtleties are of little interest to patients. However, they will affect them in the most direct way. Some pharmacy staff, on condition of anonymity, say that the requirement to enter prescription data into the MDLP system will entail the most severe control over the dispensing of prescription drugs. And this, in turn, will have a very serious impact on the availability of drugs for a huge army of patients, perhaps even causing a collapse. “Here’s an example: a person has a hypertensive crisis, relatives call an ambulance for him, but she cannot arrive quickly, and the doctor advises by phone to immediately give the patient moxonidine or captopril. The patient’s relatives run to the pharmacy, and they are sent to the clinic for a prescription. And in the clinic there are no coupons for the district police officer for the next few days. And what to do?

Pharmacists say that horror will come for them and for patients, and if the prescriptions are written incorrectly (which happens often), a real mess will begin. Legislative changes some industry representatives call hasty, capable of complicating the lives of millions of citizens. “We don’t have affordable medical care, and in such conditions it’s just crazy to introduce such innovations,” a pharmaceutical industry representative told MK anonymously.

This is not all the shocks that await the pharmacy industry. Many enterprises are already reporting more frequent checks on the release of subject-quantitative drugs (PKU) – these are drugs of strict dispensing, information about the sale of which must be stored in pharmacies. And from September 1, their list is expanding: according to officials, now such popular drugs as Andipal, Broncholithin, Valocordin, Valoserdin, Corvaldin, Corvalol, Nomigren, Pagluferal, etc. will be included in such drugs. them as “idiotic” – for example, you need to manually enter income with expenses). First of all, pharmacies that sell them will now be classified as high-risk enterprises. This means that supervision over them is being strengthened, fines for violations are increasing. The moratorium on scheduled inspections for high-risk enterprises does not apply, and Roszdravnadzor has already informed that it has included them in the inspection plan for next year.

Many pharmacists note that they are already refusing to sell PKU today – therefore, patients will face a shortage of them very soon.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29085 dated August 4, 2023

Newspaper headline:
In pharmacies, everything is on the form